Incest Survivors’ Life-Narratives

This article analyzes the narratives of survivors of father−daughter incest using 20 in-depth interviews with women, each asked to choose a title for her life-story and reflect on its meaning. Three narratives emerged: “Surviving” tells of a struggle for personal achievement in an independent life alongside intensely traumatic experiences and negative feelings, “Fighting Back/Seeking Vengeance” tells of aspiring to strength by acting on their will to fight back and desire for revenge, and “Growing” reflects the wish to fight and win a place in the world through a “rebuilding” process. The conceptualization of incest survivors’ life-narratives is based on the dialectical perspective.

Incest Survivors

Incest is recognized as a societal taboo in many cultures. Despite customs, laws, and moral edicts that forbid sex between familial adults and children or minors and adults, incest continues to occur. Although incidence rates have generally declined over the last three decades, incest is still a prevalent problem in society. The primary focus of this article is incest between adults and children, between siblings, and between children in the United States. The article provides content on the complex interplay of individual, family, and cultural structures that shape survivors’ lives using an ecological, person-in-environment perspective and an examination of the clinical and empirical forces that drive assessment, evaluation, and treatment approaches in support of culturally informed trauma recovery and healing.